The Reptile Room: A Ballad
by Smilies rule
Summary: A longawaited, FINISHED version of my original ballad, which I wrote for my English class. Based on Lemony Snicket's 'The Reptile Room'.


The Reptile Room  
The Baudelaire parents perished one day,  
"And the word 'perished' means 'died'."  
"We know what it means!"  
It's worse than it seems –  
The house had too – out and inside.  
They then went to live with the horrid Count Olaf,  
A fourth cousin three times removed.  
Their situation was dire,  
Count Olaf, a liar,  
The orphans left, not entirely soothed.  
Good Uncle Monty, he came to the rescue,  
And took the poor orphans in.  
But don't be deceived  
With the news they received,  
'Bout the Reptile Room they were in.  
This Room was home to reptilian snakes:  
Short ones, long ones and fat ones,  
Ones that could slither out of their cage,  
And slither to Sunny, youngest of age,  
Then bite her – maybe for fun?  
The snake was called the I.D.V. –  
Or the Incredibly Deadly Viper...  
But it was a misnomer,  
Soon the tension was over,  
As the snake had done no harm by biting her.  
Uncle Monty sighed with relief  
With Klaus and Violet, Sunny's siblings.  
"We're going on a trip,"  
Monty said with a skip.  
"To Peru, to see snakes and things."  
Whilst Uncle Monty was out at the shops,  
There was a knock at the door.  
A bald, bearded man  
With hardly a tan  
Came in, trailing dirt on the floor.  
"My name is Stephano," he said with a wheeze,  
"And I am Montgomery's new assistant.  
When I am here,  
My instructions are clear:  
You will be kind, caring, and persistent. (Or else.)"  
The children looked down to prevent looking up,  
And were jolted by what they saw:  
An eye near his shoe,  
And that's when they knew  
T'was the mark of Count Olaf – they were doomed forevermore.  
  
"I'm having my suspicions about Stephano,"  
Said Monty, "I think he's a spy."  
So he took out the tickets,  
Tore Stephano's into little bits:  
"Now, to Peru, with us, he can't fly."  
Next morning, however, misfortune occurred,  
As it so often does:  
Uncle Monty was dead –  
Not even in bed –  
"Now he's not coming with us."  
The Baudelaire orphans whipped around,  
And found Stephano there.  
"Murderer!" Klaus shouted.  
"Never!" Stephano doubted,  
"It's snakebite, look! The teeth marks, there!  
Violet, Klaus and Sunny stared  
At their, now dead, giddy Uncle,  
His eyes wide, like plates,  
And his deathly pale face  
Made his complexion feel sunken.  
One by one, they got into the jeep,  
Travelling as fast as they could go.  
But wasn't it luck  
That the jeep struck  
The black car of Mr. Poe?  
"Dear, dear me," coughed Mr. Poe,  
The Baudelaires' financial advisor.  
"Mr. Poe!" they cried  
With their arms open wide.  
"Stephano – he's really a miser!"  
  
"Now, Baudelaires, that's very rude,"  
Said Mr. Poe, looking shocked.  
"Oh, they're just upset  
That their Uncle is dead,"  
Said Stephano. "We're getting a doc."  
"Now stop all this fuss and get in the car,"  
Stephano said with a grin.  
"No! No! No!"  
"Please, Mr. Poe!"  
"Don't make us go with him!"  
"Why don't we all just walk up to the house?  
While Stephano drives in front?"  
"That's great, Mr. Poe,"  
Said Violet. "And Stephano?"  
Steph growled. "Just take the little runts."  
Back at the house, they called for a doctor,  
Who arrived in less than a second.  
With his grey automobile,  
And a flick of his heel,  
Into the Reptile Room he was beckoned.  
A few hours later they were all in the kitchen,  
Discussing results of the tests:  
It was the venom  
Of the Mamba du Mal  
That was found in his veins and his chest.  
The Baudelaires excused themselves  
From the kitchen in no less than a fraction  
Of a trice. Violet said,  
"Stay here, I'll head  
Upstairs. Create a distraction."  
Klaus read hard while Sunny crawled up  
To the cage of the I.D.V.  
She set it loose,  
Tied it round her like a noose,  
Then started to scream for her release.  
Mr. Poe and Stephano both rushed in,  
With the doc and his oddly stiff hands.  
Klaus gasped. "The Viper!  
It's going to bite her!  
As the black-green snake hung over Sunny, balanced.  
The sewer-pipe snake bit Sunny on the chin,  
Just as Mr. Poe had fainted.  
"It bit her! It bited her!  
  
Kill it! Get it away from her!  
Stephano just said, "With snakes, I'm acquainted."  
Meanwhile, Violet was upstairs  
Thinking of something to fix.  
She found a plug,  
And gave it a tug:  
Within minutes, she had a lock pick.  
The eldest Baudelaire rushed down to  
Where the suitcases were hidden.  
Unlocking Stephano's,  
With a wrinkle of her nose,  
She saw what, no doubt, was forbidden.  
She took some things to the Reptile Room  
But didn't like what she saw there:  
Sunny was free  
Of the I.D.V.  
Transfixed with a triumphant glare.  
"Halt!" Violet ordered, marching right in  
To the room and standing behind  
Klaus and the rest,  
And also a desk,  
To present her evidence to the people inside.  
She put down two items on the desk:  
A glass vial and a syringe.  
Then she explained  
Just how she had attained  
Her conclusion. Stephano unhinged.  
"The vial," Violet said, "contains the venom  
Of the Mamba du Mal.  
Stephano put this  
Into the syringe,  
Then injected it twice under Monty's eyeball."  
Stephano at last was bravely defeated,  
But he was not happy in the least.  
In one swift move,  
He ran out of the room,  
Away from jail and the police.  
The doctor ran out as well, after Olaf,  
After Sunny had bitten his hand.  
The hand came away –  
It, in fact, was fake –  
'Doc' was Count Olaf's comrade: the hook-handed man!  
Suddenly exhausted, the Baudelaires slept,  
On the edge of a very dark staircase.  
When they woke up,  
A full moon was up,  
Glimmering innocently in its place.  
The Baudelaire siblings then put their coats on,  
Getting ready to leave:  
Violet with her violet one,  
And Klaus with his blue,  
But Sunny thought, with her little white shawl,  
In each other, you should believe.  
And so, the moral  
of this lengthy  
ballad  
Is that greed is  
never a good thing.  
And killing in cold  
blood  
Just to get what  
you want  
Is the idea no-one  
wants to achieve. 


End file.
